When Man met his counterpart: Digital Twin and its Applications

Are you a twin? A person who is a complete doppelganger, in terms of appearance and character? Then you have a physical twin. A digital twin is the counterpart of your physical self. It is just a digital replica of an asset, product, process or an event.

To break it down even further-

Assume you have a hologram impression of yourself, revolving around. This digital replica mimics every activity you do, and every phenomenon that affects you. Now consider a new product, like a packet of chips, which has its own digital twin, sitting in the office. Now as the manufacturing process of the product takes place, the digital twin also moves down a streamlined conveyer belt, having the same amount of air, and chips stuffed into the plastic bag. As the chips enter the columns of a supermarket, ready to impress a buyer, the digital twin can track the record of a number of sales happening, the buyer’s choice and satisfaction and product efficiency.

Hope you have some idea about what a digital twin is. Application-oriented programming platforms with varied utilization techniques, to observe, act and respond to stimulus are digital twins.

Applications:

Understanding product performance:

A vehicle’s engine, is out of view for the naked eye, when the vehicle is in use. With the help of inbuilt sensors, that pump information to its digital twin, the engineers can troubleshoot problems from afar and improve customer satisfaction. Keeping a keen eye on the working of the machine also helps to predict its life expectancy, future hiccups associated with it and new ideas for improvement of the machine as well. Moreover, they can also identify the customer needs, eliminate unwanted products and also save money.

Cos future is at stake:

Building copies of inventions that you want to deploy or produce in the future, to check its tenacity, customer reviews, durability and usability will reduce the costs spent by the company by simultaneously increasing the revenues generated. For example: Assume you are planning to make a self- driving car. Emulating the environment in which the car is going to be deployed, can decrease the fault in manufacturing tests, with an increased surety of how the product will perceive in different situations. Major accidents can be averted, and the customer can also be fulfilled about the honesty of the product.

Healthcare and medicine

Your grandfather’s digital twin resides in the computers at the hospital, regularly tracing his heartbeat, calcium, potassium and sugar levels, so that the right medicine can be administered at the right time. A chip that can announce the current health status, can be carried around as a mobile pod. With multiple copies of the same, the kids of the grandfather can always monitor him, from another country. This way, families, can have some amount of peace, that their father is hale and healthy. Emulation of the inner body can help the doctors ascertain the side effects and potential danger of surgery or a new drug. Millions of lives could be saved this way.

The Internet of Things

A culmination of the “ Where Man met Machines”. Industrial IoT, revolves around sensors and monitoring. The best use case of the digital twin will be here. Proper simulation in the virtual environment, can help in diagnosis, and damage control.

Though the application seems impressive, yet complex, the advantages of them weaken the complexity. The ability to monitor a product from a far-off country and predict its stake is an engineer’s dream. Reaping the benefits of the same in terms of high generation of revenue will be the ultimate goal. If you have the ability to foresee the future and pull the chain on a massive catastrophe, people will call you a superhero. But since man does not have the ability to become one, he made machines to fulfill his dream to prophecy. Customer needs and satisfaction completely depends on product performance. If the corporate can ideally judge it, then it can tap the right resource to find its golden ticket to becoming a million dollar company.

When man made the machine, he never thought it will be as intelligent as him. But now, he makes sure it is much more intelligent than its maker so that he can put his entire trust in it. Trusting man seems too mainstream. The machine is a new way, at least you are sure you would not be dumped.